Warning: If you're expecting a kids film, this is NOT it! Zombies in a fairytale? Genius! The acting is pretty poor, the costumes looked like they came from a thrift shop and the dialogue is awful! Besides that though, I have to admit, it's compelling viewing if you like your fairytales as they were originally written. Definitely one of those movies meant for a rainy afternoon when there's really nothing else on.

Every now and and then I'll get a movie about which I know very little. After all, it can be an exciting way to discover those unknown hidden gems. This movie is not one of those gems. Sometimes a movie is so bad that I feel compelled to review it in a desperate attempt to save others the money I've wasted. This is *that* movie.It is shallow, disjointed, two dimensional and lacking any real discernible acting or directorial talent. The characters lack substance, or anything approaching a realistic thought or emotion. The story pays bare lip service to the original, which in itself would be fine, if the replacement contained any actual story line or drama. The moral of the story/film is not something from which you'd want your son or daughter learning. But then it doesn't really have a moral. Or a story.This seems strange given it is almost singlehandedly a creation of the Van Dien clan. The title role being blandly and subserviently played by daughter Grace who doesn't demonstrate any character which could place her as a female role model and develop her career (her entire existence can be encapsulated as too stupid to not touch spindle knowing what it represents, needs prince to wake her, instantly becomes his, and has his baby), while daddy Casper writes/directs and plays her dad and step mum Catherine Oxenberg plays mum. Two other kiddies have small roles too. The movie may have benefited from open auditions to get talented actors rather than just family members, but then it is possible that the writing was so bad that no-one with any actual ability wanted any of the roles.The budget is clearly low as the special effects are quite ordinary by 2014 standards, although if the story and acting were up to par, the effects probably wouldn't have mattered much. It is clearly not a kid-safe version with some unnecessary and graphic violence, which adds nothing to the movie, except perhaps confusion about who the target audience is.In a time when classic fairy tales are regularly being cleverly reinvented on our screens with strong female leads and complex characters, this movie completely misses the opportunity. Disappointing is probably the best that can be said of this production. It probably doesn't help that it is one of three movies in the same year re-telling the same fairy tale. While I haven't seen the other 2014 Sleeping Beauty, I cannot envisage it being as bad as this one, and Maleficent is a clear choice here instead.

The first 10 minutes seemed quite promising. At the beginning I really thought this movie would be something great, kind of like Lord of the Rings or some other well made adventure film. The photo is good, costumes and props were realistic looking, and the scenery was great, as was the music and what CGI was implemented. The Castle is real and looks just as a fairytale castle should look. I liked most of the characters except the prince who wasn't very royal. Right from the start I fell in love with the evil fairy (Olivia d'Abo), marvelous woman.However. With the means to go to Bulgaria to shoot a film like this one with good costumes and to be honest pretty OK selection of actors (I'll get back to this in a moment), you would presume the result to be, if not true to the story, then at least providing you with an hour or two of adventurous excitement. But this project fails on all parts. I kept telling myself that "there's a twist to it, I'll wait and see", but no. No twist, no surprise, just funny looking zombies and what I felt was poorly inspired acting throughout the movie. It seemed to me as a lazy attempt to shoot the movie live, kind of like 'playing as we go'. Some of the actors have great potential, yet here they simply did not perform. And, who wrote the script, was there a script? - Interesting questions.This project may have been a vacation event by Casper, a story for kids. A children's movie. But somehow I can't combine that with certain brutal scenes involved. I'm left with a strange feeling that the whole film is an experiment made together with family and friends. I'm not alone feeling this way, am I? I would give it a 1 out of 10, but the castle was impressive so I'll be generous enough to give a 2.

I was hoping for something along the lines of a Disney type kids drama but the fact that the leading characters had messy hair and had dialogue as wooden as a 70's robot made me realise this was something unique. I managed to last about 15 minutes until I wanted to gouge out my eyes and drill a huge hole in my head to make it all stop.It is such a long time since I have seen a movie so awful, how it managed to to get a 4 I will never know, I would have given it less than 1 but there is no option. Today in this financially challenged time I find it incredulous that this type of junk direct to DVD rubbish keeps being made, I would have hoped that the financiers had closed off the lines of credit, the sooner the better in my own opinion.